The city of Cincinnati has approved to allocate $8 million to the Farmer Music Center.
“We are going to get a nation-leading summer music venue here that’s hopefully going to attract acts that have previously passed us by–gone to Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, instead of stopping in the city of Cincinnati, and it will be home to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, an amazing marquee talent,” said Cincinnati City Councilwoman Anna Albi, who led the charge for this motion.
“This will give us so many opportunities to have really cool performances,” she added.
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra President & CEO Robert McGrath said he was excited to have received the support from city leaders.
“We are grateful to City leaders for their strategic investment in The Farmer Music Center and for recognizing the long-term value that this venue will have on both the cultural vitality and economic activity in the region,” said McGrath.
The center will be a $160 million amphitheater designed to host up to 20,000 guests and is set to open in spring 2027. It is currently being built on the former site of Coney Island, within city limits. Once open, the Farmer Music Center is projected to yield a $100 million economic impact annually and $15 million in additional city tax revenue over the next 10 years.
“After five years of earning our money back, we’re going to be taking in these profits with the tax revenue for the rest of the venue’s license,” Albi said.
At the Wednesday meeting, Council Chair Jeff Cramerding said the members had just heard about this request for allocation. He told his fellow members he would vote ‘no’ on the allocation, citing numerous concerns, including a “short runway between us learning about it (and the vote).”
“Just to be clear to the public, this was not something that this council sat on for months. We learned about this in the past few weeks,” Cramerding said prior to the vote.
Albi said this project was known by city leaders for about 18 months.
“This has been something that the council has been aware of. It’s not surprising that an investment like this is seeking public and private support, and so in terms of timing, the vote happened … this will be something that gets put on as a budget line item, and we will all get a final vote on that line item in June,” Albi said.
Still, not everyone was happy with the result of the vote, wanting more information before making a decision.
Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney said Thursday morning that she was frustrated with the 5-4 vote by Cincinnati City Council to approve allocating the money to support the Farmer Music Center.
“I was very disappointed at that vote, not because I’m against the Farmer Music Center,” Karney said, who voted ‘no’ on March 18. “I mean, it sounds like it’s going to be a wonderful venue. It will have an economic impact in Cincinnati, but we have so many other issues that we have to deal with that we have not discussed for the budget.”
Kearney acknowledged that this vote happened without doing what the council said they would do. That included three nights of public comment, where citizens can speak about concerns. That was concluded on Monday, the vice mayor said.
The next step is to set priorities for the budget, including the information that citizens shared and information the council had collected. From there, the council would talk about allocations.
Mayor Aftab Pureval is given priorities and budgets by the city manager, and he can make modifications to fit the needs within the city.
Kearney said that didn’t happen this time. She said there was no financial analysis explaining why $8 million was needed.
“We started out before we even talked about priorities and even discussed what our citizens have told us, and what we know to be true,” the vice mayor said. “We said, OK we’re going to take $8 million and make a commitment to give it to this project.”
Kearney said that the mayor supports the Farmer Music Center, but was displeased with the lack of procedure, allocating millions of dollars without a financial analysis to show a need and before the community has a chance to hear about it publicly.
“Our problem really with that is this is a premature vote. No one could really explain why they were asking for $8 million there was no explanation, no previous discussion about that.”
Kearney also said this was an example of why citizens lose confidence in Cincinnati leadership, referring to the citizens survey heard at a different meeting this week.
“We have to work on that. We have to build confidence with our citizens, and part of it is being transparent and open and making sure we get public input,” said the vice mayor.
In the end, Albi believes this will be a plus to the economy and to the ability to keep Cincinnati a great place to live.
“I’m a millennial, I’m always really thinking about what’s going to help grow — what’s going to be something that’s going to help, that’s going to appeal to the next generation to stay in Cincinnati and see how fun and cool it is to live in Cincinnati,” the councilwoman said. “And I think an amazing music venue like this is one of those things. So I’m excited.”